European Tour

We stayed in England last weekend and on Monday, Lilia's mom, Sharona, returned to talk to us about her experience at Oxford University. She told us that many parts of the Harry Potter movies were filmed in and around Oxford.  Sharona also talked to us about how, even thought they also speak English there, many words mean something different.  

On Tuesday, Max's mom, Maria, shared about her home country of Russia.  We had already learned that part of Russia is in Europe and part (more) of it is in Asia.  Her home, St. Petersburg, is in Europe.  She showed us what a large country it is and how varied the climate is.  We saw a couple of types of nesting dolls and at the end, she gave us each a copy of a 100 ruble bill as well as our own name tag with our name written in Russian!

On Thursday, we had two visitors.  Una's mom, Lara, shared information about Croatia, where she grew up.  Most if us didn't know how much coastline there is in Croatia and that there are about 1185 islands in the country!  Did you know that Dalmatians come from Croatia?  Or that the smallest town in the world (on record) is in Croatia?  The town of Hum has only 17 residents!

Later that day, Isa's mom, Hariet, talked to us about Holland.  She compared it to the size of Massachusetts. Traveling by bicycle is hugely popular over there and the cities accommodate this well.  Holland is known for its cheese production as well as its tulips.  They cover the countryside in incredibly beautiful colors.  We practiced saying Vincent Van Gogh's name properly- very tricky!  Did you know that there are more than 1000 windmills in Holland?

On Friday, Bianca's mom, Nicole, gave us information about Germany.  She brought a map with all the German states on it and showed us how Germany is bordered by many other countries as well as some coastline. We heard about some of the sports popular there including soccer (football) and race car driving.  Nicole told us about some of the foods in Germany and that there is a city called Hamburg- possibly from where we get our term "hamburger."

On Monday we will visit Italy with Cordelia's grandmother!